


a battering ram

by sebayard



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Discussions of grief, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23293609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebayard/pseuds/sebayard
Summary: The stages of grief, Keith decides, are full of crap. It’s not that linear, and it’s not that decisive. Grief is messy and impossible and like your insides are being torn to shreds. Grief is numbness and apathy and a never-ending shortness of breath. More importantly, grief is different every day.Today, Keith is angry.In the midst of his shattered world, Keith wonders who he is.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 77





	a battering ram

**Author's Note:**

> this is my extraordinarily late sheithlentines fic for @catsarereckless on twitter! I'm so sorry for this obnoxiously long wait; I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! The prompt I used as a jumping board was "Keith struggling with his Galra DNA."

There’s a lizard that lives behind their fridge. It has greenish brown scales that blend in with the wallpaper, so it takes extra concentration to notice when it pokes its head out. But Keith’s observant. He never peels his eyes away from the wall as he eats his cereal in the morning, meaning he’s guaranteed at least one look before school, maybe even two if he’s lucky.

“You stare any harder you’ll burn a hole through the wall,” his dad says.

“You’re staring too,” Keith retorts in all his eight year old wisdom.

“Touche.”

And so they stare together.

It takes a few minutes, but their scaled friend emerges from behind the fridge as if it knows it has an audience, licks the air a few times, and then scurries to a new hiding place behind the stove.

“Well,” his dad says, “there you go.”

“There you go,” Keith mimics.

He continues to eat his cereal, and his dad continues to drink his coffee, the only sound an occasional crunch, an occasional sip, and an occasional howling of desert wind.

Just your typical Thursday.

Their mornings are always quiet like this. Neither of them are particularly talkative people, but the desert isn’t a particularly loud place anyway. Feels appropriate, feels fitting.

Sometimes, though, it feels like his dad is listening for something. For what, Keith doesn’t know, but he doesn’t dare interrupt. Whatever it is he’s listening for, Keith doesn’t want to drown it out.

So he listens too, spends his mornings chewing cereal and looking at lizards and listening for distant sounds he cannot hear.

But today, Keith has a question.

“It’s bring your mom to school day tomorrow.”

His dad stops drinking mid sip. “Yeah?”

Keith nods, stirs the milk in his bowl with a spoon. “Yeah.”

The lizard appears again, timid and unsure before it runs for the front door. Keith’s eyes follow it as his own question hangs, unspoken and fragile like mist in the air.

And because his dad hears everything, he knows the answer before the question is even breathed. “I’ll be there at eight.”

Keith’s eyes linger on the door for a moment before looking up at his father. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, Keith,” he says without missing a beat. “I’ll always come when you need me.”

_I’ll always come._

And for all his listening, that’s all Keith needs to hear.

* * *

It takes a few years to fully realize what sort of gaps his father was filling in his life. Turns out they were large, cavernous things.

A few days after the funeral, a classmate asks him a question. “So it’s just you and your mom now, right?”

Keith shakes his head.

“Oh.” Then, “Where is she?”

“Huh?”

“Your mom? What happened?”

“Oh.” Keith thinks, tries to think anyway. “I don’t know.”

_I don’t know._

“Oh. Sorry.”

_I don’t know._

“Yeah.”

_I don’t know._

“Well, if you need anything, let me know.”

_Why didn’t I know?_

He realizes, then, that he never grieved his mother. Never cried over her, called for her in the night, asked his father who she was.

If he never did any of that, then why did her absence suddenly hurt so much?

Inside him, the cavern widens.

* * *

The stages of grief, Keith decides, are full of crap. It’s not that linear, and it’s not that decisive. Grief is messy and impossible and like your insides are being torn to shreds. Grief is numbness and apathy and a never-ending shortness of breath. More importantly, grief is different every day.

Today, Keith is angry.

He takes a rock and throws it off the cliff’s edge, screaming wordlessly.

Behind him, Takashi Shirogane watches.

A lot’s happened over the past several years. In a way, he lost two parents in one. He’s bounced from home to home. He’s gotten in more fights than he can count.

He also found the Garrison, or more the Garrison found him.

But that’s not quite accurate either. Shiro found him. Shiro found him and a lot of things changed after that. Hope, for one, has suddenly become a lot more prevalent in his life.

But emotions aren’t linear, and just because Keith’s life’s finally started looking up doesn’t make the anger any less real, doesn’t make the grief any easier.

Somehow, Shiro gets it. He always does, it seems.

“I hate them,” Keith whispers.

It’s quiet for a while, just the wind whistling in the canyons. Then Keith feels a warm hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Shiro whispers, “you don’t.”

Keith wants to fight back; that’s his instinct for most things. But Shiro’s been teaching him the art of patience and acceptance and apparently some things stuck, because instead of denial Keith just sinks into Shiro’s comfort and breathes. “I know.”

Anniversaries are always hard. All he wants to do is cry, but tears are hard to come by, especially since the funeral. So he settles for yelling and kicking and throwing rocks and racing hover crafts around the desert until his head spins and his thoughts are whipped into a frenzy.

“Tell me about him,” Shiro asks, taking his helmet off after they settle into a new spot a few miles from the Garrison.

“You know everything already,” Keith says, panting from adrenaline.

“So? Tell me again.”

So Keith does.

Keith tells him about his father’s jacket, coated with the smell of leather and smoke, and how it’s been sitting in his closet because he’s too afraid to know if that familiar scent’s faded. He tells him about how his boots left a distinct scraping noise on their wood floor, scuffing it and creating grooves Keith used to trace and memorize with his finger tips. He tells him about burnt pancakes on birthdays and melted candle wax sullying the taste but never the joy. He tells him about Take Your Mom To School Day, empty picture frames, vacant eyes, but mostly Keith tells him about the quiet, about the listening, about how something so silent can suddenly seem so loud now, so glaring.

“He’d sit on the front step every night. Every night.” Keith bites his lip. “He never said it, but I know he was listening for her.”

He doesn’t have to say who. They both know.

“Why didn’t he tell me about her, Shiro?”

“I wish I could tell you, Keith, I really do.”

Keith sighs. He knows he’ll never have the answer, not really. Perhaps, in a way, that’s just another loss he’s mourning; answers to questions he was robbed of asking in the first place.

The two of them end up sitting, watching the sun set behind distant mountains. The wind picks up, and Keith wraps his uniform jacket around himself tightly.

He needs a distraction.

“How are you feeling? About Kerberos, I mean. The launch is next week.”

Shiro looks at him curiously, then looks back out at the mountains. His face looks like it’s glowing, and Keith can’t help but stare. “Excited. Terrified. Probably every emotion known to man.”

Keith chuckles. “Sounds about right.” He picks up a handful of dirt, lets it run through his fingers. “Gonna miss you.”

Shiro nudges his shoulder with his own, gives him a small, familiar smile. “I’ll miss you too.”

Funny how four simple words does so much to ease Keith’s racing heart and make it swell all at once. There’s so much he wants to say…

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

“When you get back…” Keith’s breath shakes. He pauses, settles on, “Help me find her?”

Shiro blinks, then nods. “Of course, Keith,” he whispers, and once again Shiro helps to breath hope into his life. It’s settled then.

After Kerberos, Keith’s going to find his mother.

* * *

Things never go according to plan.

“Pilot error,” they say.

He wants to cry, and for ages he waits for the tears to fall. But he’s so tired… so tired…

Another hole forms, and Keith, still picking up the pieces from the last battering ram, shatters to the ground.

Maybe this time, he thinks, he should just stay there.

* * *

He hears the phrase, “Time heals all wounds” a lot. Too much for Keith’s liking. He gets the intention, he really does, and in some weird, twisted way, he guesses they’re right. “Heal” does’t seem right though. Maybe “evolve” would be better. “Time evolves all wounds.” Doesn’t have as good of a ring to it, but it’ll do.

When he’s alone in his cabin, he swears he hears them. All three of them. He understands why his father was listening all the time, now.

Keith likes to pretend sometimes. His father is sitting in a rocking chair in the corner, his mother, faceless but present, is sitting at the table, and Shiro, his Shiro, alive, safe, walks through the door, gives him a peck on the cheek.

A fantasy, but a fantasy that fuels him.

Keith refuses to give up.

Somewhere in the distant, the desert calls to him, and he listens.

Is it his mother? Shiro? Something? Nothing? Keith doesn’t know.

He follows anyway.

* * *

Turns out listening, following, pays off.

Maybe the universe doesn’t hate him after all.

It’s all a blur, these lions and princesses and aliens and wars spanning generations.

All that Keith can think about is Shiro.

During their first few days in space, Keith can’t stop staring at him. Shiro’s different, but of course he is; who wouldn’t be? Besides, Keith’s different too.

He dedicates his time to memorizing him. Relearning his signs, his tells, the quirk of an eyebrow, the twitch of his mouth. Keith used to be able to read Shiro like a book, and he doesn’t mind taking the time to study him all over again.

Keith learns a few things in the process.

He had a feeling before, but looking at Shiro now…

Keith loves him. Keith’s _in_ love with him.

And with that, the world explodes.

* * *

Some revelations are easier than others.

Realizing he is in love with Shiro, while world shattering, lifts him up in ways he doesn’t expect and can’t explain.

Realizing he is part Galra, however…

Keith sits in his room, shoulder bleeding, eyes unseeing. He stills grips his blade tightly in his hands. They’re probably bleeding too, but he can’t let go.

All this time… all this time, his father knew. His father knew and kept it quiet. And his mother…

It takes everything in him to keep from vomiting on the floor.

How could Shiro even look at him anymore?

From the corner of his eye, he sees his door open. And still, he can’t move.

“Keith?”

He breathes.

“Keith? Please talk to me.”

He breathes again.

“At least let go of the knife. Look, you’re bleeding.” Warm hands gently, calmly, cover his own.

Shiro’s.

Of course they’re Shiro’s.

Keith closes his eyes and nods. Wordlessly, Shiro takes the knife from his hands and places it on the bed. Something cold and soothing touches his palms and Keith gasps.

“It’s a salve. Coran says it’ll help.” Shiro’s voice is soft and kind and Keith can hear the caring in his words.

How? How, after all that?

Keith doesn’t say anything, just lets Shiro dress his wounds and wrap them carefully. They’re quiet, and Keith avoids looking at him because he knows if he looks in Shiro’s eyes he’ll fall apart.

He takes his time, and when he gets to Keith’s shoulder, peeling away fabric, he hisses. “This looks like it needs stitches. Maybe Coran could set up a pod for you, speed up the recovery process.”

Keith keeps his gaze downward, gives a slight shrug.

Shiro sighs, rubs the salve into the deep wound as gently as he can, and Keith shivers.

“Hey.”

Keith doesn’t look up.

“Hey.”

Still nothing.

“Keith,” Shiro’s voice breaks a little, “please.”

That gets him. Those words from him always will. Keith looks up.

Shiro looks at him, eyes wide and searching and filled with such concern Keith wants to cry. “Talk to me, Keith. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours. Please.”

“You’re always helping me.”

“Yeah, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.”

“Really?” Keith looks at him. “Even after knowing what I am?”

“What you are? Keith, you’re you. Nothing’s changed.”

“Shiro, I’m _Galra._ I’m part of the group that’s murdered millions, that’s tortured people, that hurt you. _My family hurt you,_ Shiro. My mother… I- my whole live I struggled with trying to figure out who I am. I felt like there was this… this hole. This gap that only learning the truth could fill. And I’ve looked for so long and wondered for so long but now I know and it’s still there and I’m _pissed_ and _scared_ and… I’m the _enemy,_ Shiro! I’m the very thing I’ve been fighting against. How am I supposed to live with that? Please, tell me because I don’t know.”

Shiro sits on the bed, takes his hand, looks him in the eye, breathes. “You’ll never be the enemy, Keith. No matter what anyone says, no matter what you believe, you are not the enemy.” He tilts his chin up. “I’ll say that as many times as it takes.”

“I just don’t know who I am anymore,” Keith whispers.

“You’re Keith. You love dark chocolate, you're addicted to speeding over the desert on hovercrafts, you’ve dreamed of going to space since you were six. You’re brave, resilient, smart, incredible. You’re the man I fell in love with. And even if you are all these things, please remember that no one, not your father, not your mother, not Kolivan, not even me, gets to define you, okay? No matter what people may say, or what things you discover. No one, _no one,_ defines you but you. And,” he takes a breath, gulps, “never feel responsible for what happened to me, Keith. Please. It wasn’t you. If anything, you’ve helped me, okay? One time, you said that without me, your life would be a lot different. But it’s the other way around, Keith. You keep me grounded. I need you to know that. No matter how pissed or scared or confused or lost you are, you’ll always have me, okay?”

Shiro’s eyes are filled with fire and determination and steel, and Keith’s world flips on its head once again.

“Okay.” He wants to believe him, he really does. So he makes a decision; he’s going to try. “Okay.”

The relief in Shiro’s face looks palpable. “Okay.”

But now there’s one thing Shiro said that’s playing on Keith’s mind like a broken record, over and over and over and he needs to know if he really heard it or if his fantasies went just a little too far. “You love me?”

Shiro stares at him, hand still on his chin. Keith can feel his breath on his cheeks. His voice is quiet, barely there. “Yes,” he says. “I do.”

“Oh.”

Shiro gulps. “Yeah.”

They’re both quiet and frozen in place.

Keith listens. Another battering ram is coming.

Shiro squirms. “I’m sorry, I-“

Keith kisses him.

Some revelations are easier than others. Some come in unannounced, destroy your home and leave you picking up the pieces. Others are a gentle knocking at the window. Some linger, some fade, some you can control and others you can’t. Some, like the mystery of his mother, create more questions than answers.

Keith pulls back. “I love you too.”

Shiro smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Keith chuckles. “Really.”

Shiro kisses him again, still grinning, hand still tilting his chin up.

And some revelations build something entirely new.

Keith doesn’t know if he will ever fill the hole the absence of his mother created. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get answers about his ancestry, how his parents met, where his knife came from. He doesn’t know how the others will feel about him being part Galra. Hell, he’s still reeling from it, still unpacking all that anger and shock and surprise. He’s still hurt by a lot of things, still doesn’t know a lot of things.

And not knowing… it bothers him. It does. But he’s beginning to think, to hope, that it won’t always. And right now?

(Shiro kisses his forehead, squeezes his hand, eyes filled with such strength and hope and peace that Keith can’t help but feel it in turn.)

Maybe that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Special shoutout to my giftee and the sheithlentine mods for being extra patient with me. I hope you all enjoy the fic!! 💕


End file.
